'Captivated: Trials of Pamela Smart' a mix of media, murder

Sentinel and Enterprise staff photos can be ordered by visiting our SmugMug site.

By Joanne Ostrow

Denver Post Television Critic

"Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart," a documentary debuting tonight at 9 on HBO, considers what happens when a murder trial is treated as entertainment and explores the role of the media in influencing the outcome.

Perhaps you remember the 1990 case in which Pamela Smart was convicted of conspiracy to murder her husband and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She has maintained that she had nothing to do with plotting the murder.

If you do remember the case, it's probably because it was everywhere in the media -- films, TV, news, a novel -- and set the stage for the country's tabloid TV obsession.

For those of us who mediate reality through words or pictures, "Captivated," an official Sundance Film Festival selection, is a sobering reminder of the potential distorting power of the media.

Director Jeremiah Zagar ("In a Dream") makes the point that, whether in the form of a novel, a TV movie, a newspaper story or TV news report, the narrative takes on a life of its own. In the yelling presentation of daytime talk shows, in the formal style of documentary reports, in a big-budget Hollywood movie and TV news tidbits, mediated versions of reality alter perceptions and impose a new, neatly flowing narrative on the usually disjointed original events.

Zagar opens his film theatrically to stress a point: On the screen we see an empty theater, where the heavy curtain opens to reveal a TV set.

Advertisement

The screen comes alive with a collect call from Pamela Smart in prison as she begins telling her side of the story. There will be many conflicting accounts before the curtain closes.

Throughout the film, old TV sets in diners, kitchens, prisons and dentist offices relay the coverage, inviting the public, then and now, to serve as vicarious jurors.

A refresher: Smart, 22, worked in the media center of a New Hampshire high school where she became romantically involved with student Billy Flynn, 15. Flynn and three teenage friends -- Patrick Randall, J.R. Lattime and Raymond Fowler -- went to the couple's condo and murdered Smart's husband. The four young men later reached a plea deal for a more lenient sentence in exchange for their testimony against Smart.

During the trial, emotions ran high as a photo of a bikini-clad Smart made the rounds and the tale of an evil seductress took shape. Geraldo. Oprah. Phil Donahue. "Hard Copy." This was the first murder trial to be televised gavel-to-gavel, and TV couldn't get enough.

On WMUR in New Hampshire, the 14-day trial bumped regular programming and drew higher ratings than the afternoon soaps. The Boston Herald urged readers to call in and "press 1 for guilty ..." Journalist Joyce Maynard wrote a novel based on the case, "To Die For," that was turned into a film with Nicole Kidman as Smart. A TV movie starring Helen Hunt as Smart was "an easy sell for television," the director recalls.

Both movies are excerpted here to illustrate the case and the confusion -- looking back, key players admit they can't be sure whether they're recalling a film scene or the actual event.

Everyone had a role to play; everyone wanted to be on TV. Even the accused contributed to the mediation: Smart herself directed camera shots for the initial local news coverage (it was her idea to feature the wedding cake in the freezer that would have celebrated the couple's one-year anniversary, had her husband not been killed). Even now, she describes an imagined shot of herself walking out of prison someday, when she proves her innocence.

Zagar suggests we are all complicit in letting the media define Smart's identity and shape the story. In a director's statement, he writes that we are all "making life-and-death judgments based on faulty flickering information."

Paul Thaler, who has written two books on cameras in the courtroom, invokes the Heisenberg Principle. In physics, it refers to the fact that just by observing particles, humans influence them. In courtroom proceedings, he says, the same is true.

The media can't win in this formulation. And by media, Zagar means novelists and fiction filmmakers as well as news reporters.

Our job is to observe, not to influence, but just by observing, we have unintended effects. Regardless of where one stands on the case -- and Zagar clearly isn't convinced justice was served -- this documentary urges viewers not to hate or resent the media, but to be aware that, by adding a layer of storytelling, we're part of the show.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sentinel and Enterprise. So keep it civil.